Cauldyth

Fantasy 4X games, at least in the traditional definition, are actually in short supply. I really can't think of any other than Master of Magic. Fantasy General was a war game, while games like HoMM and Age of Wonders don't really qualify as 4X in my book. You're just capturing pre-established cities and using them to crank out more combat units. None of them feel like you're running an actual fantasy empire, and they lack any sense of building things from the ground up. Domi

From all sorts of places... Vancouver, New York City... but currently calling San Francisco home. Possibly returning to New York City again soon though...

Star Control 2 blew me away, and still blows me away today. I've played the free version of it, Ur-Quan Masters ( WWW Link - yes, it's a legal download), and it's still a fantastic game. I think it's my favourite game of all time. The story, the races, and the humour are all exceptionally well done. On top of that, the free-form gameplay made you feel like you were actually altering the course of galactic events by your own actions and whims as to wha

We're adding techs but we're going to change the user interface to be much better. Ah, the good definition of streamlining! I've always found GalCiv2's tech tree UI to be a bit difficult to work with, so I'm looking forward to that. I play on my laptop a lot, and at 1024x768 there's a lot of scrolling around involved.

will dreadlords pop up in a normal game? Yep!

Hmm, I need to call my boss and tell him I won't be getting much work done this fall... Too many games I want to play coming out!

Weird, my games always feature an effect that has the weakest power of the moment being entirely destroyed. Then the galaxy returns to a short peace and then the next weakest power is targeted. Usualy by the entire galaxy. Sounds like some sort of twisted reality show... except the weakest contestant doesn't get voted off the island, they get wip

And for the record, no, I don't take the above stand because I'm some wimp who wants to stick his head in the sand and not think about political issues. I actually have quite strong political beliefs - none of which I'm going to share with you. You see, I've been around long enough to know that waving my **ck around on internet forums in order to "give the other guys a good thrashing" and show everyone what an "awesome, well-informed debater" I am is just self-indulgent BS. It only se

*sigh* Some of you people... We just got over ChickGate, and we immediately have to light the fuse on something even worse (politics - second only to religion as the worst source of internet flamewars ). I swear, some people THRIVE on flamewars. If there isn't one raging, they crank up the rhetoric high

I dunno, personally I'd be happy if the OT forum went away completely. Call me lazy, but I generally use the "Recent Posts" summary to see what's going on around here. Too often that list is dominated by discussions like "What did Hugo say today?!" and "What have the Democrats/Republicans done now?!" I come here for GalCiv2 talk. I could watch any one of 500 talking heads on cable news if I wanted that other nonsense. <img src="http://images.stardock.com/gc2/T_DL/smiles/Smile.gif" bo

Well, the factories and employment thing is presumably a bit of an abstraction. In free, capitalist societies, the government doesn't really own much in the way of factories. They buy military and other goods from private sector companies which have their own factories. The way I rationalise GalCiv2's mechanic in my head is: - Your government "building a factory" really amounts to things like zoning that region for industry, building the necessary infrastructure, etc. <br

Hey, no one ever claimed he wrote GOOD movies!

They're considerably different games. If you want a polished, balanced singleplayer game with an AI that can give you a challenge, GalCiv2 is your game. If you want a game that gives you a zillion options of things you can do, is a little on the geeky side, and is probably going to be more fun multiplayer than single, then SEV might be the better choice. Some warnings, just so you don't get any nasty surprises: GC2 Warning: There is no multiplayer. SEV Warning: SE ga

This topic is going no where fast Agreed. The point of contention is whether or not Tom Chick should have reviewed SotS following his work for StarDock. Whatever anyone's feelings on that, I don't see how it has anything to do with StarDock. The company involved in the behaviour in question is 1UP. StarDock's relationship with him end

Anyways, I can't possibly shed any new light on the matter, but here's an analogy that sums up my views on this... -Movie Critic 'Billy McDoodle' (not a real critic, I know) get's a bit cameo in a comedy movie "Fun Times 3" -"Fun Times 3" does well, and the critic and the production house go seperate ways -Going back to his real job, Billy writes a negativ

While I'm staying out of the whole Tom Chick affair (mostly because I simply don't care - game reviews are 90% a waste of time to begin with ) I'd just like to point out that, in my experience, Stardock people have been quite magnanimous when it comes to their "competitors'" products. Wardell even started his own thread about Dominions 3, encouraging people to check it out, and also said he'd be checking

Fair enough, there's a 360 port for Crysis, but I guarantee you it won't look as good as the PC version. It's a DX10 game, using DX10 features, which 360 hardware doesn't support. It will need to have those features (and probably others) disabled, and will be running at a lower res. So, my point still stands, you won't see a game as good as what *I* linked on a 360. Anyway, I think we've sort o

my favorite part is you always run your games at the best graphics with better preformance than a computer You can put the games on "max" graphics because the developers never give you higher graphics options than they know the box can handle. The game COULD look better, but they haven't implemented any graphics options beyond what they know the

For me, copy protection in games isn't an inconvenience, it's an impenetrable barrier. While I do have a desktop, I do a lot of gaming on my laptop, so I can sit on my couch in front of the TV and play, or play on airline flights, or even play while waiting for a flight at the airport. My laptop is an IBM X Series, which has no CD drive. Unless I'm actually sitting at my desk, I also have no internet connection either. Any game which requires either a CD in the drive or internet auth

I love the culture of the video game store, I love going and talking to the same clerk year after year talking shop about video games. Sadly, PC games are being relegated to a smaller and smaller section of game stores. In the 90s I used to love dropping by EB to browse the shelves of games. Now when I go, I usually have to search around until

Speaking of which, it looks like you guys will be distributing Sins of a Solar Empire (notice the Stardock symbol/link)... WWW Link Certainly looks like a nice game...

Here's what happens when you "just throw in" multiplayer... WWW Link Any questions?

I really see very little difference between "release DA as planned, and expand it after Christmas" and "release a beta this fall, and the final after Christmas." It seems to be mostly semantics. GalCiv2 betas have been very stable in the past (more stable than a good number of RELEASE versions of other software). I realize some people are reluctant to play betas, but perhaps this would be a good time to break that self-imposed rule. <img src="http://images.stardock.com/gc2/T_DL/smiles/Wink.gi

Well, I'm never one to turn down an offer of even more enhancements and features! Seriously though, too many game releases these days are followed by comments from the developers along the lines of "we had some really great features we wanted to put in, but we ran short on time... maybe next time..." It's always disappointing, and it always leaves me wanting to see the "Director's Cut" of these games - what the game would've been like if the developers had been able to do everything they wante

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